page_title: Ica stones
section_title: Popularization by Cabrera
hierarchical_section_title: Ica stones / Popularization by Cabrera
caption_attribution_description: English: Ica stones
context_page_description: The Ica stones are a collection of andesite stones found in Ica Province, Peru that bear a variety of diagrams. Some of them supposedly have depictions of dinosaurs, and what is alleged to be advanced technology. These are recognised as modern curiosities or hoaxes.
  In the 1960s Javier Cabrera Darquea began to collect and popularize the stones, obtaining many of them from a farmer named Basilio Uschuya. Uschuya, after claiming them to be real ancient artifacts, admitted to creating the carvings he had sold and said he produced a patina by baking the stone in cow dung.
context_section_description: Meanwhile, in 1966, Peruvian physician Javier Cabrera Darquea was presented with a stone that had a carved picture of a fish, which Cabrera believed to be of an extinct species. Cabrera's father had begun a collection of similar stones in the 1930s, and based on his interest in Peruvian prehistory, Cabrera began collecting more. He initially purchased more than 300 stones from two brothers, Carlos and Pablo Soldi, who also collected pre-Incan artifacts, and claimed they had unsuccessfully attempted to interest archaeologists in them. Cabrera later found another source of the stones, a farmer named Basilio Uschuya, who sold him thousands more. Cabrera's collection burgeoned, reaching more than 11,000 stones in the 1970s.
  Cabrera published a book, The Message of the Engraved Stones of Ica on the subject, discussing his theories of the origins and meaning of the stones. In this he argued that the stones were evidence "that man is at least 405 million years old" and for what he calls "gliptolithic" man, humans from another planet. He said that "Through the transplantation of cognitive codes to highly intelligent primates, the men from outer space created new men on earth." The Ica stones achieved greater popular interest when Cabrera abandoned his medical career and opened a museum to feature several thousand of the stones in 1996.
  In 1973, during an interview with Erich von Däniken, Uschuya stated he had faked the stones that he had sold. In 1975 Uschuya and another farmer named Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana confirmed that they had forged the stones they gave to Cabrera by copying the images from comic books, text books and magazines. Later, Uschuya recanted the forging story during an interview with a German journalist, saying that he had claimed they were a hoax to avoid imprisonment for selling archaeological artifacts.
  In 1977, during the BBC documentary Pathway to the Gods, Uschuya produced an Ica stone with a dentist's drill and claimed to have produced a fake patina by baking the stone in cow dung. That same year, another BBC documentary was released with a skeptical analysis of Cabrera's stones, and the new-found attention to the phenomenon prompted Peruvian authorities to arrest Uschuya, as Peruvian law prohibits the sale of archaeological discoveries. Uschuya recanted his claim that he had found them and instead admitted they were hoaxes, saying "Making these stones is easier than farming the land." He engraved the stones using images in books and magazines as examples and knives, chisels and a dental drill. He also said that he had not made all the stones. He was not punished, and continued to sell similar stones to tourists as trinkets. The stones continued to be made and carved by other artists as forgeries of the original forgeries.
caption: A collection of Ica stones surrounding a portrait of Javier Cabrera
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SX100 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2010:03:29 16:58:30", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x1001": "3264", "Image Tag 0x1002": "2448", "Image ExifOffset": "2234", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:03:29 16:58:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:03:29 16:58:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "189/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "43520/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2448000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4168"}